Fabrication of Nanochannel Arrays for the Selective Transport of Ionic Species

In summary, we have described a direct and simple method to control the surface charge properties of ion-tracked PET membranes via carbodiimide coupling chemistry. We have demonstrated that the negatively charged membranes allow the selective transport of positively charged molecules and hinder the passage of negatively charged ones. The selectivity of these filters was reversed by changing the surface polarity from negative to positive via amination. We have also described here the construction of a system which demonstrates ATP-modulated molecular transport through synthetic nanochannels. The molecular flux is chemically controlled via ATP in the surrounding environment. In this context, we believe that this platform would be applicable for the discrimination of enantiomers of drug molecules and multi-responsive drug delivery system at the nanoscale level by introducing suitable functionalities on the channel surface.